Sunday, February 22, 2009

Implications of the erosion of Labour's vote to the BNP

The panic has started about the local council wins for the BNP in Sevenoaks.

There's general shock, and especially the official politically correct type.

My guess is that is mostly a protest vote. The more commentators and especially government ministers go on about how obnoxious and "unacceptable" the BNP are, the more those who would dearly love to kick our political class in the **** see their way of doing so. This will be hard for opinion polls and canvassers to pick up, but there will have been many angry people putting their cross where they think it will annoy the whole political class the most.

Labour are terrified. ( At least when their senior people can drag themselves away from plotting their own personal advancement. )

Labour's vote could collapse.

And they realise this and we are already getting the responses which will consist of the following:

1) Announcements about getting tough on Immigration. ( Not they only do this to save their seats, and probably won't implement much of it anyway. Just wind your mind back to 2005 to see how insincere they really are on this.)
2) A greater search for scape goats, as shown by John Prescott (he who disgraced high office and in true New Labour fashion didn't even have to resign for it !) trying to run a campaign against bank bonuses, and in effect his own governments policies.
3) Lots of Hazel Blears type moments as Labour tries to hug the white working class.
4) A half hated attempt to blame the Tories for the BNP.
5) Every third BBC anouncement to drop the word "far" from right wing before describing the BNP ( after all this way they can smear the Conservatives at the same time as reporting the news - despite the fact that the BNP is a left wing party taking its votes from Labour ).
6) Trevour Phillips on TV talking about the white workling class needing help also.
7) Some guff on council homes to try to get white people further up the housing list. ( Yes that would be racism to you and me. )

But the really dangerous stuff will start if the BNP do well in the June elections. My guess is they will turn on the press, and the Daily Mail in particular. Expect new laws on inciting community division and not respecting "Diversity" as Labour desperately sacrifices anyone and anything to claw onto office for a few more years.

PS I find the rise of the BNP worrying, but understandable right now. They are no where near forming a govt, ever. Even the Lib Dems have better prospects. But their rise may create fissures in our society, equivalent to the impact of Islamicism and its associated terrorism, and for that reason they represent a threat.

The best solution is to try and provide another route to allow people to express their dissatisfaction with our political system. I would suggest the "Non of the Above" option on ballots should hoover up a lot of the kick em' votes, as well as giving our political class something real to worry about.

How about also only paying our MP's in proportion to their turn out at elections ?

3 comments:

Rod said...

What happens if "None of above" takes 70% of vote? Do we have a re-run or names in a hat?

William Gruff said...

I favour a 'none of the above' option and actually wrote 'none of those listed' on my ballot paper in the 2005 general election. If 'none of the above' receives the most votes all those listed should be disqualified and a second election held for that constituency, within a set period, with new candidates.

Man in a Shed said...

@Notory - essentially I'd go with William Gruff on this.

The key thing is that no MP should feel secure in any constituency.

Then perhaps we'd get more people coming forward for reasons of service rather than career.